Guard7 Version 1.0

Protect your confidential information easy.

Guard7 is a general purpose cryptography tool that can be used to encrypt or decrypt email, file, sign and verify files. It is the graphical frontend for the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG or GPG, http://www.gnupg.org) on macOS (previously Mac OS X) with additional features. Guard7 is an encryption and decryption system based on industry standard that can ensure the complete security of business negotiations or personal messages. It was developed to make the daily work with GnuPG on macOS easy and simple.

It's free!

If you can't open the link above, please launch App Store and found Guard7 by searching.

Why

The most difference between "public key cryptography" and normal "password protected cryptography" is that the first approach don't ask you to distribute any password to anyone or any unsafe place, e.g. email, chat app, or internet. That is, you send an encrypted file to someone, but don't need send any password to him/her. And most important point is, you need an encryption tool that has industrial strength to protect your confidential information.

General Features

Group and subkey management.

Drag operation for group organisation, easily manage hundreds of contacts by company and department.

Basic Usage

You don't need to know more about public-key encryption at all, you can get industry-level information protection with just a few simple steps.

Generate a key pair for yourself.
Click and the system will generate a public and private key pair for you. You should send the public key to others who can then encrypt message for you. The private key is used to decrypt message and must be keeping for yourself. You SHOULD NOT send your private key to anybody, but keep it for yourself VERY CAREFULLY.

Distribute your public key.
Select your key, click and then select "Export Public Key", your public key file will be created on disk. Put your public key in the GPG server, your web site or send it directly to others via email.

Import other people's public key.
Ask somebody else to send his public key to you, or if he has already distributed his public key on GPG server, you need to download it and then simply drag the key file into the system to import it.

Use other people's public key to encrypt message, and then sent to them.
Drag their email (public key) into the right drop-area as recipients, and then encrypt your message or file.

Decrypt message with your own private key.
If someone else has your public key, they can encrypt message with your public key, and you can decrypt the message with your private key. When you decrypt a message or file, or verify file signature, you don't required to do any extra actions. The system will automatically use the default master key you set, that is, you don't need to choose your own private key manually.

Encrypt or sign file follows the same steps and principles.

Group Contacts

Organise your contacts by company and department.

Click to add new group.

Click the minus symbol '-' under the tree to delete key or group.

Add key to group: drag the primary key to the group that you want it belongs to.

Delete association between key and group: drag the primary key out of the group to a blank space.

Edit group name: click the group then edit its name just like in Finder.

Note: Drag operation only available for the primary keys that always display an email address.

The engine will decode the message and output the result in the mail box.

With the help of Guard7 you can encrypt any text message and send it in any way convenient for you.

Recipients Organisation

Drag single key or several group form left-side-tree into drop-area, single key means an individual and a group means all recipients in it.

Right click to see more details of the selected key.

Right click to remove some recipients.

Drag multiple groups into the drop-area enable you quickly organise hundreds of recipients to receive your file or message. But if you use a command line software or other tools, you will have to organise the recipients one by one, it's very time waste, boring and tedious.

Sign File

Drag the file into drop-area.

Click on the Toolbar.

Select the output directory.

Verify File

Drag the file into drop-area.

Click on the Toolbar.

Select the location (directory) of the signed file, normally it should together with the signature file in the same directory.

Edit Key

Reset expire date.

Reset passphrase.

Sign key with a different trust level. There's five trust level:
1 = Don't know
2 = I do NOT trust
3 = I trust marginally
4 = I trust fully
5 = I trust ultimately
This option help you to decide how far you trust this user to correctly verify other users' keys.

Set the key as your default master key.

Create subkey separately used for encrypt or signing.

Operation with Finder

Drag key file into left-side-tree then you can import it.

Drag encrypted file, signature file or message into drop-area then you can decrypt, verify or read them.

Select key file, signature file, encrypted file or message in Finder, right click "Open With" then you can import key, verify, decrypt or read the message.

Keyring Management

keyring is a package working like a folder that binding group info, public and private key together, it's a common zip file when you export a keyring. The system will automatically create a keyring named as "home" for you if there's no any keyring exists when you run Guard7 at first time.

Click "Preferences" on main menu.

Create new keyring.
When your contacts are too many, such as thousands, or other reasons you need to create a separate keyring for a large number of contacts.

Import or export keyring.
You need to import keyring from other system, e.g. Linux. and when backup or change hardware you need to export keyring. Please compress your ~/.gpg on Linux as a tar file when you want to import it into Guard7.

Switch keyring. keyring enable you to organise group of contacts like folder and can conveniently switch between them.

Key Management

Never send your private key to others.

Keep your private key on a USB drive is a good method, but print it on paper and lock it in a safe will be more reliable.

Backup your keyring carefully.

Sign and encrypt messages with your subkey.

Sign and encrypt files with your subkey.

Verify a key in an efficient way is, directly make a phone call and ask he/she read out the fingerprint of his/her key.

Guard7 on Wikipedia

There's a reference of Guard7 on wikipedia from Feb 2018, but some shameless "gentleman" removed it viciously, again! again! and again! and again! Blocking edit again! again! and again! and again! They don't want this useful tool can be free used widely! Because they want control and make money!

After a long fight with them, they are not shameless "gentleman" but bastard!

The reference have been removed by these guys, please kindly recover the content on that page to help others if you have permission.

In 2018, Sevenuc Consulting released a free utility named Guard7
on [[Mac App Store]] that make the daily work with GnuPG easy and simple on [[macOS]],
it is a graphical frontend for GPG with some additional features,
e.g. organise contacts into group, switch different keyrings.
Guard7 smoothly integrated with the macOS' built-in Mail app,
and can easily organise dozens of recipients for email message.
Encrypt or decrypt file just require dragging the file from Finder into Guard7,
it is very convenient and simple.
{{cite web|url=http://sevenuc.com/en/guard.html|title=GUI frontend of GNU Privacy Guard on macOS}}

Wikipedia in fact a cheat advertise game heavily controlled by only a few shameless guys!

Note: You can do a little thing for justice and liberty, that is, tell the story to others, they viciously remove content and block editing! Tell everyone you know how bad they do on Wikipedia!
Break their mask!
Thank you!